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SURAT: Central Board of Excise and Customs
(CBEC) given a go-ahead for the setting up of India's first Special Notified Zone
(SNZ) at Bharat Diamond Bourse
(BDB) in Mumbai from July 1, 2015 has led to excitement among diamantaires
Now, the diamantaires will not have to visit Dubai and Antwerp to purchase rough diamonds as they would be available at the auctions and sale at BDB.
Recently, the CBEC had issued a circular introducing necessary provisions to allow and facilitate viewing, auction and sale of rough diamonds at the SNZ from July 1. The BDB has been notified as the custodian for the scheme under Customs Act and will designate an area which will house facilities for the receipt, storage, viewing, auction and sale of rough diamonds
Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) office-bearers said that they along with BDB have decided to set up a special purpose vehicle (SPV) named India Diamond Trading Centre (IDTC) that will be entrusted the job of handling of rough diamonds imported for auctions and sales by diamond mining companies from around the world.
The companies entitled to avail of the SNZ facility are those permitted by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) through its circular dated April 1, 2014. These 21 companies include De Beers, Rio Tinto, Alrosa, Gokhran, BHP Billiton, Endiama, Dominion Diamond Marketing, Namibia Trading Company etc.
Surat Diamond Association (SDA) president Dinesh Navadia said, "The SNZ is going to hugely benefit the small and medium diamantaires. The role of middlemen in the diamond market would be minimized as the companies will organize direct auctions and sale. This will make the diamonds cheap and they will be available at the doorstep."


text: The National University of Mongolia (NUM) inaugurated its world-class new library. The NUM has commissioned the new library just in time for the celebration of its 75th historic anniversary. The library is thought to be a name card for the NUM, Mongolia’s oldest and leading university which has over 100 thousand alumni. Mainly funded by the university itself with MNT 16 billion budget, the library has been built in the course of three years. At present, the library’s inventory comprises over 400 thousand paper and digital copies of books and publications. Moreover, the library incorporates a digital reading room where more than a thousand CDs, over two thousand master’s theses and access to 16 international online databases are available. With a capacity of serving 700 readers at a time, the brand new library also runs a modern book restoration laboratory.

domain: news


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LAS VEGAS (AP) - A first wave of online shoe retailer Zappos.com workers is stepping into the company's new downtown Las Vegas corporate headquarters.
About 200 employees will see the results Monday of a $40 million makeover at the renovated former Las Vegas city hall building at Stewart Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard.
A Las Vegas Review-Journal preview found a Lego brick sculpture in the lobby, an open-form office layout throughout the 12-story building, and ping pong tables and elevator video games for employees.
Up to 1,800 more workers will follow in days ahead.
The opening comes nearly three years after city officials and Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh agreed on a lease with the company that owns the property.
City Hall moved in February 2012 to a new building several blocks away.
Copyright 2015 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.


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Prices of basic commodities are stabilising and marginally decreasing on selected items, arresting the volatility and speculative behaviour which characterised the market before the introduction of the foreign exchange auction system in June.
Fuel, sugar, cooking oil, rice and bread are among commodities whose prices have moved southwards in recent weeks, bringing relief to consumers who had become accustomed to prices changing as they queued to pay at till points.
The supply of goods has also normalised, with most supermarkets now fully stocked, leading to the elimination of a black market for some commodities.
Although some products are going up owing to importers failing to access forex from the formal market, the margin of increases is not substantial.
A snap survey by The Herald this week revealed that prices of basic commodities had marginally decreased and in some cases, stabilised for two months. The prices however, depended on product preferences and where one was buying from. A two-litre bottle of cooking oil, which was averaging $250 two months ago, has gone down to around $214 while sugar has eased to $212 from around $250.
There is still a shortage of roller meal but refined maize meal is abundant in the shops, with the price remaining in the region of $450 per 10kg packet for several weeks now. Rice is averaging $215 per 2kg packet since August.
Zuva Petroleum, which was selling blend at US$1,28 last month, is now retailing at US$1,18.
Information from the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe (CCZ) shows that the cost of a monthly basket for a low income urban family of six, has largely been stable since June. The monthly basket for July was at $14 256,98 and there was a steady rise for August to $14 438.23.
CCZ executive director Ms Rosemary Siyachitema said although there was some form of stability, it was too early to celebrate.
“We need to keep on tracking. Prices have declined but it is not enough. Some prices were too high and they are still high even if there is a reduction so it is not yet enough but we want a trend that prices continue to fall,” said Ms Siyachitema.
Economist and University of Zimbabwe lecturer Professor Albert Makochekanwa said the stability of the foreign currency rate had a symbiotic relationship with that of prices.
“The exchange rate has stabilised for more than a month now so I think it is one of the reasons that shop owners can now put a price for more than a month without changing it. Some businesses are now getting forex from the auction system without going to the black-market and they are getting it at quite reasonable rates,” he said.
“Some prices decline because of demand. People are now selective in terms of purchases and few people are buying things like ice cream, for example. Prices decline or stabilise because of demand.
“But the long term solution is to improve our production in terms of output and that means we will improve our forex earnings,” said Prof Makochekanwa.
Confederation of Zimbabwe Retailers Association president Mr Denford Mutashu buttressed Professor Makochekanwa’s point, saying price stability was a result of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s auction system.
“The stability is a result of the introduction of the foreign currency auction system which has improved the access to foreign currency at a predictable market. It was what business required for short to medium term planning.
“Formal business has been able to assess foreign currency on the formal market. The parallel market was holding businesses to ransom before the introduction of the formal market.
“We need to continue with measures that make sure that the parallel market is decimated and never finds its way back. It causes a lot of pain and suffering by manipulating the market,” said Mr Mutashu.
Employers’ Confederation of Zimbabwe president Dr Israel Murefu also attributed the price stability to the forex auction system but said prices needed to continue falling.
“The auction system has helped prices to stabilise. It helps the inflation rate to fall and we see that in price stabilisation, but it is too early to celebrate this stability. We want a stability that is sustainable in the long-term and that can be made possible if the supply for foreign currency is higher than the demand.
“At the moment, a few are getting foreign currency on the formal market. The pressure for salary increments is now a bit low but the pressure is still there despite the stability. Salaries have not yet matched the prices,” said Dr Murefu.
The central bank’s forex auction system is expected to keep inflation low, decimate the illegal market, protect the value of the local currency as well as avail foreign currency to wholesalers and manufacturers who feed into the local market.
Government’s economic stabilisation measures are bearing fruit, confounding critics claiming that things are unstable in the country.
Source: The Herald.


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It's almost as if the creators of "Fast and Furious 7" know exactly how excited we are for the next installment, because they've been gracious enough to post nearly one picture a day from the set. Yesterday, Ludacris gave us a look at the cars that will tear up the asphalt in next year's sequel, but cars aren't the only reason we're looking forward to this one.
There's also a cast that out does every other installment in a series that's known for its crazy ensembles, but perhaps the most exciting addition to the team is a legend of the action movie genre.
Stuntman Mike himself, Kurt Russell, had been rumored to join the cast, and now the latest photo from set confirms as much. He appears in what looks like an auto repair shop with Paul Walker and Vin Diesel. It may be worth noting that all three men are wearing suits, which doesn't seem particularly in-character with the rest of the series. Maybe they're going to a fancy dinner or something.
Regardless, this is an amazing addition to the series, which continues when "Fast and Furious 7" hits theaters on July 11, 2014.


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Our presence at Gulfood 2018
Duntower Corporation joined thousands of exhibitors and visitors at one of the world's largest, central trading hubs between East and West, the well-known Gulfood event hosted in Dubai.
From February 18 to 22, Duntower Corporation took part in the 23rd edition of the food and beverages exhibition Gulfood 2018—one of the largest fairs of its class in the world—in Dubai, UAE.
The event took place at the unparalleled Dubai World Trade Center skyscraper.
Year after year, Gulfood is one of the most eagerly awaited events of the industry, this is because the exhibition attracts—since its first edition in 1987—professionals from all over the world and provides them the chance to explore the newest trends, discover business opportunities and enjoy first-rate seminars and conferences.
During the 5-day event, over 97,000 visitors and 5,000 exhibitors from 185 countries were given the opportunity to explore an incredible global product showcase from 8 primary market sectors: Beverages, Dairy, Fats & Oil, Wellness & Free-from, Grains & Cereals, Meat & Poultry, World Food and Power Brands. Gulfood 2018 was also a great display of new services, technologies and innovations
As always, Duntower Corporation seized the chance to discover new products and suppliers, unveil fresh business opportunities, find solutions to evolving global challenges and stay up to date with the latest trends in consumer behavior.


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On the afternoon of Might 23, the Ministry of Trade and Commerce - Finance determined to regulate retail
On the afternoon of March 1, the Ministry of Trade and Commerce – Finance determined to regulate the retail gasoline value each 10 days.
On this adjustment interval, the inter-Ministry determined to extend E5 RON 92 gasoline to 547 VND/liter with the utmost retail value of 26,077 VND/liter. For gasoline RON 95 can be adjusted up by 554 VND/liter with the utmost retail value of 26,834 VND/liter.
It may be seen that that is the sixth consecutive enhance and in addition the fifth time from the start of 2022 to now. Each gasoline objects are actually at historic highs.
Not solely adjusted to extend the value of gasoline but additionally oil merchandise, at this working interval, the inter-Ministry additionally elevated strongly.
Particularly, the promoting value for diesel oil elevated to 21,310 VND/liter; kerosene is nineteen,978 VND/liter and gas oil is eighteen,468 VND/kg.
Within the adjustment interval in early March, the inter-Ministry of Finance – Trade and Commerce has deducted the stabilization fund for gas oil 300 VND/kg and used the stabilization fund for gasoline E5 RON 92 at 250 VND/liter, RON 95 is 220 VND/liter, diesel is 300 VND/liter.
Because the starting of the yr, the inter-Ministry has constantly spent closely on value stabilization funds to curb the rise in home gasoline costs.
It’s identified that the world value of gasoline remains to be sophisticated by the affect of many elements together with political stress between Russia and Ukraine. Furthermore, there’s a scarcity of petroleum provide in Vietnam as a result of the Nghi Son refinery and petrochemical plant has reduce its capability.
Earlier than that, many financial consultants mentioned that the petrol value regulator ought to contemplate the proposed plan to cut back taxes on gasoline. Notably for environmental safety tax, A95 gasoline is carrying 4,000 VND of tax, E5 gasoline is 3,800 VND/liter and diesel oil is 2,000 VND/liter; Flight gas is 3,000 VND/liter.
Along with the environmental tax, petroleum merchandise are additionally topic to many different taxes similar to consumption tax, import tax, and so forth. Moreover, the value of gasoline additionally incurs many different revenue prices similar to norms, setting apart a median fund. steady, regular enterprise bills, and so forth.
On February 22, the Prime Minister in a dispatch on petrol and oil administration assigned the Ministry of Finance to imagine the prime accountability for, and coordinate with the Ministry of Trade and Commerce and related companies in, urgently learning and proposing a plan to regulate the insurance coverage tax coverage. environmental safety for petroleum merchandise, report back to the Prime Minister earlier than February 28, 2022.
Not too long ago, on March 1, the supply of PLO, Youththe Ministry of Finance has submitted a plan to cut back gasoline tax underneath the latest route of the Prime Minister.
However the authority to resolve to regulate the environmental safety tax is the Nationwide Meeting Standing Committee, so when accepted by the Authorities, the proposal might be submitted to the Nationwide Meeting Standing Committee for consideration and determination.


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Wal-Mart Invasion: How the Corporate Behemoth Forced Its Way into Your City
Back in the 1980s and early 1990s, the most eye-catching graphic in the Wal-Mart annual report was the “measles map” of the United States, in which each dot represented a company store or distribution center. At first, they were all clustered in Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas, Wal-Mart’s home turf, but then, year by year, the map charted a seemingly inexorable, disease-like spread as state after state became densely covered with scores of little black dots. The Midwest and South were largely dot-filled by the end of the 1980s; New England and much of the Pacific Coast were spotted less than a decade later. Soon, more than 4,000 dots filled the U.S. map, taking up almost every available space.
Wal-Mart executives dropped the measles map in 1994, because, well, a lot of people thought of the company’s growth as something close to a cancerous malady corrupting the body politic. Why reinforce that imagery? More important, though, the dot-filled graphic was not quite as impressive as it seemed. The dots never made it into Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Washington, D.C., or other Northern and Western cities. And these urban markets constituted at least 20 percent of the nation’s buying power, with plenty of hard-pressed consumers who wanted cheap food, clothing, and hard goods. From Wal-Mart’s point of view, those out-of-reach consumers represented somewhere between $80 billion and $100 billion in potential sales.
Wal-Mart was barred from these big blue cities because a coalition of unions, liberals, and environmentalists, including a large slice of those elected officials representing African American and Latino communities, said no. More recently, though, Wal-Mart has been banging on these doors again -- this time around, marketing itself as an environmentally sensitive, job-providing panacea for urban America. While doing nothing to alter its exploitative labor practices, Wal-Mart has worked hard to woo an incongruous collection of liberal constituencies, including enviros, building-trade unions, and inner-city pols. They’ve gained a limited entry -- one store here, another there -- to some cities they couldn’t crack half a decade ago. Whether they can gain more -- flooding into the cities and bringing down the wages of hundreds of thousands of unionized urban grocery workers in the process -- remains to be seen.
Throughout much of the last decade, liberals were able to blunt Wal-Mart’s drive into urban America. Southern California was ground zero in this fight. In 2002, Wal-Mart announced that it wanted to build at least 40 Supercenters in the state, many in Los Angeles and other consumer -- rich coastal regions. Management at such old-line supermarkets as Safeway and Kroger were so fearful of this Wal-Mart invasion that in late 2003, they proposed slashing wages and benefits to meet the new competitive standard set by Wal-Mart if and when the giant retailer built its stores -- precipitating a four-month strike by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW). The strike ended in a decisive defeat for the union’s 70,000 Southern California grocery workers. The chains forced the UFCW to accept a new contract that reduced pensions, capped health-insurance payouts, and instituted a two-tier wage structure that made it almost impossible for new hires to earn a decent wage.
Meanwhile, Wal-Mart barreled ahead with its expansion plans. In Inglewood, a declining African American and Latino city enfolded within Los Angeles, Wal-Mart found the City Council unreceptive. The company then organized and funded a local group called Citizens Committee to Welcome Wal-Mart to Inglewood, which quickly gathered enough signatures to require the city to put on the ballot Wal-Mart’s own 71-page planning document. Voters were asked to approve Wal-Mart’s stores as designed, without possibility of a public hearing or city review.
But this Wal-Mart invasion, labeled “a Confederate economic Trojan Horse” by the Rev. Jesse Jackson at an Inglewood rally, came up short. Spurred on by a coalition of liberals and labor determined to mitigate the consequences of the UFCW defeat, Inglewood voters turned back the Wal-Mart ballot initiative by a decisive margin. Even more important, the unions became far more sophisticated in their battle against the big retailer. They teamed up with the savvy Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, a public-interest policy group that had links to traditional liberals, the Latino-led labor movement, and planning advocates who sought to redevelop Los Angeles in a progressive, labor-friendly fashion. LAANE pioneered the community benefit agreement (CBA) concept whereby any business seeking to build or operate a new commercial development -- a stadium, shopping center, hotel, or big-box store -- would agree to meet environmental standards, hire local people at a living wage, pay adequate health-care benefits, and, in some instances, facilitate unionization by mandating employer neutrality during an organizing drive.
Prodded by LAANE and the unions, the Los Angeles City Council enacted an ordinance in August 2004 that required big-box retailers to fund a cost-benefit analysis, on a store-by-store basis, designed to demonstrate that any new outlet of more than 100,000 square feet would not have an adverse economic or environmental impact on the surrounding community. Such an analysis would tally not only the jobs and sales-tax revenues generated by a new store -- always a Wal-Mart talking point -- but the hidden costs as well: traffic, policing, downward wage pressure, and the cost of taxpayer-financed safety-net programs for the children of low-income Wal-Mart employees. Soon, San Diego, Santa Ana, Turlock, and Long Beach had passed similar economic impact laws. And with Wal-Mart blocked from entering the LA market, the UFCW was able, in its 2007 and 2010 bargaining with unionized Southern California supermarkets, to partially undo the concessions it had been compelled to make in 2003.
But Wal-Mart would not play ball, refusing to participate in any of the impact studies mandated by these new ordinances or to enter into negotiations for a CBA covering one of the 180,000-square-foot Supercenters it hoped to build in urban California. Instead, the company continued to run expensive campaigns and support politicians who would give Wal-Mart condition-free access to coastal California, Chicago, New York, and other markets where unions were strong and politics bright blue.
Wal-Mart lost most of these battles. Indeed, the conflict energized the company’s opponents and led to fierce debate and sometimes enactment of a slew of ordinances and laws that either blocked big-box stores entirely, provided for higher wages and benefits, or mandated an economic and environmental impact study. The Maryland Legislature, for example, passed a law that required any company with more than 10,000 workers in the state to devote 8 percent of its payroll to health insurance for its employees. Wal-Mart was the only firm affected by the legislation.
A federal court soon struck down the Maryland law, but not before Wal-Mart reaped another round of publicity that tarnished the corporate image, putting the company’s growth “under siege in several regions of the country,” in the language of the marketing firm Bernstein Research. Indeed, after New York City rejected Wal-Mart’s 2005 effort to build a store in Queens, Lee Scott, then the company’s CEO, shot back with wounded Arkansas pride, “You have people who are just better than us and don’t want a Wal-Mart in their community.”
But Wal-Mart never gave up its quest for the urban market. Today, it needs those customers more than ever. Although Wal-Mart weathered the Great Recession better than a lot of other retailers, the Bentonville, Arkansas–based merchant is a mature company whose fortunes are depressed by the wage stagnation and unemployment that have made life so difficult for many of its shoppers. “Our own surveys and reports … indicate that financial uncertainty still weighs heavily on everyday Americans, including many of our core customers,” Wal-Mart CEO Michael Duke told investors late last year. Nearly 70 percent of Wal-Mart’s business comes from customers with household incomes of less than $70,000 per year.
Same-store sales have actually dropped for seven quarters in a row as overall sales inch forward by a few percentage points each year. Wal-Mart’s stock price has been just about flat for a decade, even as those of rivals such as Costco have soared. And the income polarization that once robbed Sears and other middle-class retailers of their markets is now eroding Wal-Mart’s capacity to keep growing. Sam Walton, Wal-Mart’s founder, made his family rich by exploiting the vast lower-class market created by the economic turbulence during the 1970s and after. Today, a new cohort of retailers is finding a pool of truly desperate customers that even Wal-Mart has overlooked. There are now thousands of “dollar” stores in America -- Dollar Tree, Dollar General, Family Dollar -- which cater to shoppers who are often too poor to own a car. These stores, most a tenth the size of a typical discount emporium, are found in almost every strip mall in the country. They are cheap, dirty, and understaffed but are growing rapidly and stealing customers that Wal-Mart once counted as core clients.
Things are not all that great abroad, either. Wal-Mart has stores in 16 countries, but income generated abroad is a much lower proportion of overall sales than it is at rivals Carrefour and Ikea, which are more adept at accommodating the culture of their host countries. Wal-Mart is doing great in Canada, but it plays second fiddle to Tesco in the United Kingdom and failed utterly in Germany and South Korea, where it lost billions before pulling out. Wal-Mart is the dominant retailer in Mexico but faces “competition” from a vast informal economy that the big-box retailer cannot penetrate. Meanwhile, Wal-Mart has just closed its Moscow office, and in China, which the company sees as a potential market second only to the United States, expansion has been far slower than company public relations might have one believe. Even after more than a decade in the country, Wal-Mart still only has 328 stores there, fewer than in Texas. Wal-Mart makes a ton of stuff in China, but the Chinese themselves don’t buy all that much of it.
So the cities beckon, but in its efforts to enter them, Wal-Mart has had to adopt a new set of tactics and hire some culturally and politically attuned executives. Chief among them is Leslie Dach, a Yale-educated New Yorker, longtime environmentalist, and a former staffer for both Edward Kennedy and Michael Dukakis. Dach, who was hired in 2006, has been more than another public -- relations flack. He signifies the company’s determination to put its best foot forward when it comes to mollifying some of the company’s blue-city critics.
To solve Wal-Mart’s “reputational” problems, Dach and company moved along two fronts. They mollified company critics where possible but divided them when opportunity and necessity coincided. Thus, in June of 2009, Wal-Mart President Michael Duke joined with trade union leader Andrew Stern and John Podesta of the progressive Center for American Progress in endorsing one of liberal Democrats’ key ideas in the health-care legislative fight. This was the employer mandate, which would require that all large corporations either provide health insurance or pay a mandated fee -- $750 was the ballpark figure -- to the government for every employee who was not covered.
This “pay or play” plan put Wal-Mart on the side of unions and liberals and seemed to let Wal-Mart off the hook for its own inadequate health-insurance offering, a vulnerability unions and blue-state public officials had long listed at the top of the company’s sins. Although Wal-Mart itself did not trumpet its tack to the left in the health-care debate, executives at the industry lobbying arm, the National Retail Federation, declared themselves “flabbergasted” at what they saw as Wal-Mart’s “catastrophic” endorsement of a government mandate that most retailers, once including Wal-Mart, have long considered anathema.
The mandate idea was eventually excised from the Obama administration’s health-care bill, but Wal-Mart was nevertheless quietly pleased with the final legislation. Like the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Children’s Health Insurance Program for the poor, the new health-care law amounted to a vast subsidy for Wal-Mart’s low-wage workforce. The expansion of Medicaid to all those making up to 133 percent of the official poverty level will probably mean that about half of all Wal-Mart workers will be directly covered by this government program. And from Dach’s perspective, the company’s new respectability was worth its weight in gold. “Retailer’s Image Moves from Demon to Darling” headlined The Wall Street Journal in July 2009, after which Michael Duke was among the handful of friendly executives President Barack Obama invited to lunch. That fall, Dach told Wall Street analysts that the new respect Wal-Mart had earned from politicians “has enabled us to continue to be part of this debate in a far more effective way than we have ever been on the sidelines.”
Although it actually represents a far less ambitious departure from Wal-Mart’s core business practices, a “sustainability” initiative has also softened the retailer’s reputation. This is a multiyear effort to reduce the carbon footprint not only of Wal-Mart’s own stores and trucks but of every vendor in the entire transnational supply chain. A prologue came in late 2008 when Wal-Mart began to rebrand all its stores with a new logo that dropped the hyphen/star, instead offering the rounded, lowercase “Walmart” followed by an asterisk-like design resembling either a flower or a yellow sunburst. Wal-Mart executives then announced the creation of a sustainability index, which green activists soon dubbed “The Wal-Mart Index,” much to the company’s satisfaction. To create this universal rating system for products sold in Wal-Mart stores, the company is “asking” tens of thousands of supplier firms to survey their energy consumption, waste production, greenhouse-gas emissions, water use, and other environmentally measurable activities and then send the information to Bentonville. Wal-Mart will use its famed technological prowess to measure the environmental competence of thousands of suppliers and then display the results of every product it carries.
The initiative is classic Wal-Mart: Use the company’s tremendous buying power to foist as many costs as possible onto its vendors, thereby squeezing millions of workers and thousands of manufacturers. Discard those who fail to measure up and then take credit for the low prices or, in this case, for the environmental friendliness and nutritional value of the product when it finally reaches the shelf. But whatever the supply chains’ costs, these Wal-Mart programs demonstrate the pattern-setting power of the company. “We want [nongovernmental organizations] around the world, when they think of the partner who can help them move their agenda forward to think of us,” Dach says. “We want governments who need to have a partner who’s nonideological, pragmatic, and gets things done on a big scale to think of us. And we want our customers, when they may not have as much faith in some other larger institutions … to look to us as a trusted brand.” Indeed, “Wal-Mart is in a position almost like the Food and Drug Administration,” says Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. “I think it really pushes the food industry in the right direction.”
More bluntly, says the ever political Dach, “It reduces the traction of our enemies in a meaningful way.” He could report, in campaign-mode language, that by the second half of 2010, company support among conservatives remained strong at 77 percent approval and that moderates liked the company almost as much. But Dach was most excited by the shift among self-described liberals. Five years ago, half gave the company a clear thumbs-down, and a sizable proportion said they would never shop there. But just four and a half years later, 59 percent of these liberals told a company -- sponsored survey that they were now favorable to the company, while only 35 percent remained negatively inclined.
So Wal-Mart has been making progress among environmentalists and liberals. But what about the unions that executives routinely label “enemies” of the company? Indeed, the UFCW, with more than 1.3 million members in the U.S. and Canada, constitutes the backbone of the anti -- Wal-Mart coalition. Although the UFCW has never been able to organize a single Wal-Mart store in the U.S., it has successfully backstopped, with money and expertise, many of the activist organizations and local government officials who have battled Wal-Mart in the press and in politics. The UFCW fears that Wal-Mart will put unionized grocery stores out of business or set a new, low-wage and benefit pattern that will soon spread to the chains where the union has long represented workers -- as it did in Los Angeles.
Wal-Mart made no concessions to the UFCW, but the company did divide labor’s ranks. For years, the unionized building trades were almost as hostile to Wal-Mart as the UFCW was, because the company was willing to hire a set of aggressively anti-union contractors to build its stores and distribution centers. But in the summer and fall of 2010, Wal-Mart demonstrated that a divide-and-conquer gambit could work, even within the house of labor. First in Chicago and then in New York, Wal-Mart reached agreements with area building and construction trades councils that any new stores built in or near each city would be constructed by union labor. In Chicago, the agreement to build at least 21 new stores is to last for five years, the same as in New York. Both deals were notable because they were project labor agreements (PLAs), a collective-bargaining arrangement that mandates union labor, considerable local hiring, and apprenticeship programs for minority youth. Wal-Mart had never before signed PLAs of this sort, and these arrangements have long been anathema to anti-union contractors. It was not surprising, therefore, that the Associated Builders and Contractors, which represents these “merit shop” firms, saw Wal-Mart as a turncoat company.
The UFCW and its liberal allies were furious but stayed publicly mum when it came to this building-trades betrayal. At the June 2010 Chicago meeting, where the City Council approved an agreement for the first of the new stores, debate was heated and sometimes personal. When the time came for the vote, however, all 50 aldermen and women endorsed the deal.
So, is Wal-Mart going to be the savior of the cities? Defending his deal with Wal-Mart, Chicago Federation of Labor President Dennis Gannon laid it on the line: “We didn’t cave on anything. Take a look at the job market right now. Our communities need jobs. Take a look at the food deserts. Our communities need … grocery stores. Take a look at no building and construction trade going on in Chicago. Thirty percent unemployment.”
In Chicago, where overall unemployment hovers near 10 percent, Wal-Mart promises 2,000 new construction jobs, 10,000 staff positions, over $500 million in sales and property tax revenue, and a billion dollars in capital expenditure. Perhaps more realistically, in Washington, D.C., where Wal-Mart proposes to build four stores in areas often labeled “food deserts” -- communities lacking quality grocery stores -- the company promises 1,200 new jobs over the next two years, $10 million in new tax revenue, and pay that is “equal to or better than those offered by competitors, including unionized grocers.”
But a lot of this is just well-tested public relations, adopted and adapted from the scores of “site fights” at which Wal-Mart is a past master. The company has long used the promise of an inner-city store as a “loss leader” designed to soften up the political opposition, especially in underserved minority neighborhoods. This was the pattern in Los Angeles, where Wal-Mart converted an old Sears store in the African American Crenshaw neighborhood, and on the West Side of Chicago, where the company hired a black-owned local contractor to build its first store.
But if residents of Washington, New York, or Chicago expect the company to build more than a bare handful of Supercenters in the poorer, neglected neighborhoods, they will be mistaken. In Memphis, Houston, Atlanta, Cleveland, St. Louis, and other cities where Wal-Mart has faced little or no opposition, it has built just one or two stores in the inner-city neighborhoods. Those communities pretty much remain food deserts for the same reasons other supermarkets have not located there: too much poverty and crime and a dearth of the kind of customers who will spend a hundred or more dollars on their weekly shopping excursion. Instead, Wal-Mart, even more than its competitors, builds its stores largely in white, middle- and lower-middle-class neighborhoods, and in recent years, increasingly in the more affluent exurbs.
The Wal-Mart job promise is also likely to disappoint. Thousands will undoubtedly apply for the several hundred jobs that come with each store. Lines of desperate job seekers are now commonplace every time the word gets out that a new hotel, post office, or retail outlet is hiring. Wal-Mart will most likely overstaff its flagship urban stores for the first year or 18 months. After that, the distinctive Wal-Mart management practices will kick in: barebones staffing, high turnover, and a watchful eye on all those employees who manage to hang on and work their way up the salary scale.
Indeed, the willful failure of Wal-Mart to provide a decent and secure career is the main difference between the company’s labor policies and those of its rivals. Wal-Mart is right to boast that its hiring wage -- about a dollar above the minimum wage -- is roughly the same as that offered by unionized chains, but if you hire on at Safeway or Giant, it is entirely possible that after a decade of reliable work, you can just about double your wages, build up a modest pension benefit, and secure the kind of regular shift that facilitates a relatively secure lower-middle-class lifestyle. No such career is possible at Wal-Mart, unless you are one of the lucky few who make the leap to store management. (The company boasts that 73 percent of all managers started off as hourly workers. That is true, but the real question is what proportion of hourly workers can expect to rise into the ranks of management, and that figure is both guarded and minuscule.)
In fact, the incentive structure at Wal-Mart severely penalizes any overage in the store labor budget decreed by the computers at the main office in Bentonville. This makes it almost mandatory that store mangers churn the local workforce to eliminate those workers who have climbed the salary scale and to keep the flow of near minimum -- wage greenhorns plentiful. Without a union, seniority system, or grievance procedure to restrain them, managers are free to be just as flexible as they like, moving workers about and cutting hours or shifts, in the process making the work lives of their “associates” short and unpredictable. Thus, the truth in a recent Wal-Mart advertisement touting the company’s “Hourly Jobs, Salaried Careers.”
But what about all those low prices for which Wal-Mart is world famous? Here yet another recent Wal-Mart advertisement tells us a lot: “In today’s economy, nobody’s more committed to helping family budgets go further than Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart saves the average family about $3,100 a year, no matter where they shop. Save money. Live better. Shop Wal-Mart.”
What is meant by “No matter where they shop”? Wal-Mart’s claim that the average family saves more than $3,000 a year is based on a study that the company commissioned from the economic research firm Global Insight. The report concluded that if 1985 is used as a baseline, then Wal-Mart’s remarkable innovations in logistics, its famous squeeze on vendors and manufacturers, and the downward pressures it exerts on the prices charged by competitors have led, over more than 20 years, to an overall decline in the consumer price index that works out to $3,100 per year per family.
This is indeed something to celebrate. Food, clothing, electronics, house goods; they all cost less than before Wal-Mart’s retail revolution. Unfortunately for Wal-Mart, this relative price decline has hardly been confined to the Bentonville -- based merchant. The decline has seeped into every nook and cranny of the retail economy. Target, Kroger, Sears, and most other retailers have appropriated Wal-Mart’s innovations. Just as every automobile manufacturer soon installed a version of the assembly line first deployed by Henry Ford, so too have the Wal-Mart innovations become standard operating procedure in retail. The company does have a slight price advantage in groceries over firms such as Kroger. The difference, though, is not radical and shrinks as these rivals figure out how Wal-Mart does it. So the paychecks of urban shoppers at the new Wal-Marts will not go much further than they do at the chain supermarket down the block.
Higher wages and a steady job would help shoppers out a lot more, if merely because even the most dedicated Wal-Mart shopper only spends about 20 percent of the family budget at the big-box discounter. The rest is spent on housing, health insurance, education, transportation, retirement savings, and the like. And those you still can’t buy at Wal-Mart.
So, what is to be done now that Wal-Mart has cajoled its way into urban America? Given the weakness of both labor law and the labor movement, there is not much hope for unionization even in the most labor-friendly districts. But Wal-Mart can still be pushed, prodded, and regulated into acting like a mature company that lives up to its progressive public-relations campaign. If and when the new health-insurance law finally takes effect, many Wal-Mart workers will see a real improvement in their overall social and economic welfare. And should the Obama administration finally get around to pushing for a higher minimum wage -- which remains a popular and effective social-policy tool -- then the gap between the wages paid at Wal-Mart and its competitors will shrink. Finally, if Leslie Dach truly wants Wal-Mart to partner with all those environmental and nutritional NGOs, then the company may find itself forced to ameliorate some of the more destructive and exploitative practices embedded within its global supply chain.


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Ladies Golf News 18th Jul, 2022 by ukclubgolfer.co.uk
Sustainable performance activewear brand Reflo is the new official apparel partner of this year’s Trust Golf Women’s Scottish Open, taking place at Dundonald Links, at the end of July. The partnership celebrates the first drop of Reflo’s new sustainable womenswear range.
Reflo will provide event uniforms for all tournament officials, VIP sponsors and Pro-am guests. Additionally, Reflo will provide gift vouchers for all ticket holders, volunteers, VIP’s and Pro-am guests. The first ten fans who enter the event each day will also receive a gifted Reflo hat.
Reflo will also be committing to plant a tree for every birdie scored. Reflo’s apparel is made from advanced technical fabrics produced from recycled single-use plastic and coffee beans, one of Reflo’s hoodies contains the equivalent of 37 recycled plastic bottles. Working towards Reflo’s aim of recycling five million plastic bottles and planting one million trees by 2026, this partnership will see the equivalent of 25,852 plastic bottles recycled and 1,650 trees planted in areas around the world that have been devasted by deforestation.
Rory MacFadyen, Co-Founder of Reflo commented: “As a brand with sustainability at its core, we couldn’t think of a better event to launch our first womenswear drop.”
The Scottish Government and VisitScotland have long supported women’s golf, and in 2020 announced a five-year commitment to the Women’s Scottish Open with investment of up to £6m through to 2025.
Paul Bush OBE, Director of Events with VisitScotland commented: “Reflo is an exciting innovative brand, and we are delighted to support them in their aim to drive positive change within the fashion industry. Sustainability is an issue of ever-growing importance, so we are very passionate about Reflo’s recycling and tree planting initiatives that will create a positive impact to our environment.


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McFarlane Toys Collectors Club 'Calvin Johnson Jr.' Exclusive
The figure marks the SportsPicks Debut for Johnson, better known as “Megatron.” Selected with the second overall pick in the 2007 draft, Johnson has been dominating opposing NFL defenses ever since. In 2012, Johnson signed one of the largest sports contracts ever, receiving $132 million over 8-years. Johnson added yet another accomplishment under his belt being featured on the cover of Madden 2013, releasing August 2012. Johnson is showcased in his Lion’s black jersey making yet another amazing catch!
This exclusive features Calvin Johnson in the Detroit Lions black jersey.
Paint: original paint
Format: action figure
Collectors Club Exclusive
UPDATE: This item will be available for order in LATE OCTOBER 2012!
MORE McFarlane NEWS & UPDATES


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For the past couple of decades, there have been three main players in the video game hardware space: Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft.
However, a fourth major technology company is gearing up to throw its hat into the ring very soon: Google.
Since early 2018, many reports have surfaced pointing to Google working on a video game streaming service and associated gaming console. Google itself has openly talked about its desire to offer a game streaming service, although the company has revealed little beyond that.
That will soon change, though. On Tuesday, March 19th at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, Google says it finally unveil its vision for “the future of gaming.”
The keynote will be livestreamed between 1pm and 2:30pm ET on YouTube.
MobileSyrup will also be at Google’s announcement bringing you all the detail directly from the show floor.
In the meantime, here’s everything we know about Google’s long-gestating gaming plans and what you can expect to see from next week’s presentation.
The first detailed report on Google’s game streaming plans came in February 2018 from The Information. According to The Information, Google has been working on a game streaming platform called ‘Yeti’ that would, in theory, remove hardware limitations and allow even lower-end devices to play more technically demanding experiences.
Google eventually shared some light on these plans in October 2018 with free public testing of Project Stream, a service that could stream AAA games to various laptops or desktops directly to a Chrome browser.
According to Google, Project Stream was “a technical test to solve some of the biggest challenges of streaming” designed to “push the limits with one of the most demanding applications for streaming — a blockbuster video game.”
There were some caveats, however. Only select people in the U.S. were able to participate, while the only game that was featured was Ubisoft Quebec’s Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. Despite limited testing, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in a February earnings call that “early feedback on [the] Project Stream experience has been super positive.”
However, streaming isn’t the only part of the gaming industry that Google is reportedly investing in. The original report from The Information noted that Google may be working on a console on top of its streaming service.
This was later corroborated by a report from Kotaku‘s Jason Schreier, a journalist who has become well-known in the industry for frequently accurate reports about unreleased gaming products. According to Schreier, “whispers have been quieter” about Google’s hardware initiatives, although he had heard rumours that the purported console “will link up with the streaming service in some way.”
However, Schreier said he wasn’t told whether Google’s console will have higher-end specs to compete with the next-generation PlayStation and Xbox consoles or if it will be a cheaper device that’s still capable of playing some games, such as the Apple TV set-top box. The latter seems more likely, given Google’s push towards streaming to a variety of devices, especially those on the lower end of the cost spectrum.
A recently surfaced Google patent from 2014 also points to a gaming controller, although given how old the document is, it’s unclear how much it may reflect Google’s present hardware.
In any case, some sort of Google gaming hardware appears to be a given, not just due to the reports from The Information and Kotaku but also based on how the company has been promoting its GDC event.
As noted by Ars Technica, Google’s senior vice president of hardware, Rick Osterloh, has been tweeting about Google’s GDC keynote. In this position, Osterloh has overseen such Google products as the Pixel phone and Home smart speaker, so his apparent involvement in the GDC event certainly points to the reveal of some sort of gaming device.
We are going to talk about the future of gaming! You can watch it live on 3/19 at 10AM PDT → https://t.co/L7tIKMW7HF
— Rick Osterloh (@rosterloh) March 12, 2019
Google’s product store — which sells hardware, not software — is also promoting the GDC event.
In his original report, Schreier mentioned that Google has a “three-pronged approach” to gaming. The first two elements of this plan are the aforementioned streaming service and console, while the third piece of the puzzle is Google’s goal to “bring game developers under the Google umbrella.”
To that end, Schreier said Google reportedly held private meetings “with several big video game companies to gauge interest in its streaming platform” at GDC 2018 last March.
Schreier wasn’t able to confirm if Google intends to recruit new talent en masse or if it’s planning to acquire or create new studios entirely, the latter of which reflects what Microsoft has done over the past year.
That said, we do know of at least a few prominent figures in the gaming industry that have joined Google over the past year.
In January 2018, games industry veteran Phil Harrison joined Google as a vice president and general manager. Harrison had previously overseen Sony’s network of PlayStation studios for 15 years and worked at Microsoft for three years as a senior member of the Xbox team.
Last July, Google also hired Richard Marks, the former head of Sony’s PlayStation accessories division who oversaw the development of devices like the PlayStation VR and PlayStation Eye. Specifically, Marks joined Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) division, the branch that is reportedly working on the Yeti gaming platform.
Most recently, Montreal-born video game producer and executive Jade Raymond joined Google as a vice president.
I’m excited to finally be able to share that I have joined Google as VP!
— Jade Raymond (@ibjade) March 12, 2019
Raymond has played a prominent role in the industry, particularly in Canada. At Ubisoft, she was was producer on the Canadian-made Assassin’s Creed series and founded the company’s Toronto studio in July 2009.
Raymond left Ubisoft in October 2014 and later went on to Electronic Arts, where she opened the Montreal-based EA Motive studio. Raymond left EA in October 2018 and teased in December that she was working on a “top secret project.”
With all that said, we can probably expect to see some big-name game developers at Google’s GDC keynote, in addition to the usual suspects like Osterloh.


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2015 Legacy Concept moves flagship to true sports sedan status
The Subaru Legacy flagship has never been considered a true sports sedan. Will the next-generation Legacy attain global sports sedan status? For any car to make it for a quarter of a century, it has to be something special. The Subaru Legacy is celebrating 25 years and five generations of changes. When the 2015 Subaru Legacy Concept is unveiled this week in LA, the "Ocean Silver Metallic" sedan will serve as toast to 25 years of the flagship Subaru sedan. But the real story could be its transformation to becoming a true sports sedan.
The Subaru Legacy sedan was born in 1989, and has served as the flagship for the brand for twenty five years. It’s been praised for its safety, dependability and driving performance around the globe. In Australia, it’s called the Liberty because of the Legacy charity organization in the country down under. Around the world it has delivered the combination of Subaru Boxer engine and Symmetrical AWD (S-AWD), Subaru's unique core technology for 25 years. But it’s never been considered a performance sedan.
Legacy is becoming a true sports sedan
Legacy is in its fifth-generation and the current model, which debuted in 2009, has delivered new technologies and moved into the mainstream and made some progress in becoming a sports sedan. In 2009 the flagship finally “grew up” in size and became a global mid-size sedan. It needed to grow to compete with the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord. But is Legacy ready to make the next step now?
Now as it gets ready for its six-generation, the 25th anniversary of the Legacy sees the flagship make the next step in its evolution. This model shows the design direction of next generation Legacy mid-size sedan models and where Subaru is headed. The Japanese automaker as a brand is growing up too, and the new 2015 Legacy will launch the brand forward.
A coupe-like design
It starts outside with a bold new design that gives the Legacy a coupe-like four door styling. If the Legacy is going to really compete for global status as a mid-size sports sedan, it had to make this transformational change. The large 21-inch wheels and athletic body point to how the sedan is being transformed into a sporty contender.
The front end of the new 2015 Legacy starts with Subaru's iconic hexagon front grille and continues to the whole body. We can see the iconic grille that was first employed on the SUBARU VIZIV CONCEPT which was revealed at the 2013 Geneva motor show. It also gets a more aggressive fascia that shows the sporty character underneath.
The most exciting part of the new Legacy design language comes from the side view. It’s been given a sleek and sporty side profile created by a fast roofline and a flowing side window. The coupe-like appearance of the Legacy has taken a page from the Mercedes-Benz CLA four-door coupe that is making waves around the globe. This new Legacy will launch Subaru to a new status around the globe.
Sporty feel inside and out
Subaru has not released any performance details, but the dual tailpipes built in the edge of rear bumper tells us this sport sedan will have enough power to be considered a formidable challenger in “Sport Trim.” Maybe we’ll see a new Legacy GT model with the six-generation sedan?
Step inside and the sporty feel continues. Subaru says drivers will be welcomed by a sporty cylinder shape meter and 3-spoke steering wheel. Also its shifter is angled to align with the driver's seating position to inspire “a sporty driving feel.” Add in heated and cooled seats, a head-up display, a high-tech multi-function in the instrument panel and the new six-generation Legacy is ready to take on the competition.
Maybe the new-generation 2015 Subaru Legacy will be a true global sports sedan. Look for the 2015 Subaru Legacy Concept to be officially unveiled on Wednesday, November 20. Stay tuned.


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One of the most popular health tracking platforms has no plans to integrate with iOS 8.
Unlike Apple, Facebook doesn’t want to track your vitals. Yet.
New details emerge on Stanford and Duke’s upcoming trials with Apple’s HealthKit.
The first health app for Android Wear lets users shake their watch to report back that they took their medicines as instructed.
GoBe is a health tracker that claims to be able to count your calories in real time. The device has its share of skeptics. So we talked to George Mikaberydze, cofounder and managing director of GoBe maker Healbe, to get his response to the criticism.
Apple's doing it, Samsung's doing it, and now Google wants to store your day-to-day health data too.
Plenty of device makers at the Computex trade show in Taiwan this week are hoping to stake a claim in the growing market for wearable devices. But the products on display looked like more of the same.
Early partners for the new Health app include Nike, the Mayo Clinic, and Epic Systems.
It's like Johnny Cab without the guy! Google's ride is here, and it's a cute little car. Plus we talk about Samsung's Simband, what an Apple entry into the home-automation market might mean, and Facebook's latest attempt to cut back on the oversharing. With guests Jason Cross and Leah Yamshon.
Samsung announced a development platform for companies to create apps and sensors for a new generation of health-tracking wearables.
Sitting is bad for you, so the Darma smart cushion can remind you to get off your duff, and make the times you do have to sit slightly healthier.
With ultrathin sensors and Bluetooth, this smart cushion can nudge you to sit less, or at least with better posture.


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To borrow a baseball metaphor, Amazon’s Prime Day was an out-of-the-park home run, with sales surpassing the previous combined total of Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
As you might expect, Amazon is overjoyed.
“We want to thank Prime members all around the world,” Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO, said in a statement. “Members purchased millions of Alexa-enabled devices, received tens of millions of dollars in savings by shopping from Whole Foods Market and bought more than $2 billion of products from independent small and medium-sized businesses. Huge thank you to Amazonians everywhere who made this day possible for customers.”
All told, Prime members bought 175 million items. Topping that list in the U.S. were products such as the LifeStraw Personal Water Filter, Instant Pot DUO60, and 23andMe ancestry kit.
Prime Day could have easily been named Tech Day given what was sold. All told, Amazon saw more than 100,000 laptops and 200,000 TVs go out the door, but the surprise winner were smart devices, which continue to improve their place in the tech food chain.
Customers purchased twice as many Fire TV Edition Smart TVs and twice as many Ring and Blink devices as last year. Also showing some sales muscle were the MyQ Smart Garage Door Opener Chamberlain MYQ-G0301 and the Amazon Smart Plug.
Kid tech was also a big hit. Amazon reported that customers purchased hundreds of thousands of Amazon kids’ devices such as Echo Dot Kids Edition, Fire 7 Kids Edition tablet, and Fire HD 8 Kids Edition tablet.
Outside of tech, Prime members loaded up on more than 100,000 lunchboxes, 350,000 luxury beauty products, 400,000 pet products, 650,000 household cleaning supplies, and 150,000 Crest 3D White Professional Effects Whitestrips Kits.


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Throughout 2020, the Southeast Asia Centre of Asia-Pacific Excellence will be conducting a 2-hour online seminar to share insights about how firms across Southeast Asia have been impacted by the corona virus outbreak and how they are adapting in the face of this global pandemic.
Facilitated by Professor Siah Hwee Ang and a team of five other international business experts the webinar covers:
29th May - Complete
5th May - Complete
April 17th - Complete


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Notes Ban Set to Become Turning Point for India’s Mobile Wallet Sector
Wednesday, January 4, 2017
If one were to table a list of the happiest entrepreneurs in 2016, Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma would undoubtedly be on top.
The mobile wallet company has been the single-largest beneficiary of the government’s move to ban currency notes of R500 and 1,000. Ever since the decision was announced on November 8, Paytm’s user base has touched 160 million — more than the population of Russia.
MobiKwik, Paytm’s second-largest competitor, is one fourth its size.
Paytm has become a verb — Paytm karo (Do Paytm). “I don’t need to sleep, this is a dream that I am living while trying to solve the pain of people,” said Sharma.


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CHICAGO — Winsight, a provider of business research, news, trade shows, networking events and other intelligence for the food and beverage, convenience-store retailing and grocery industries and the publisher of CSP Daily News, has announced two key executive appointments to facilitate its expansion.
Kurt Reisenberg, a 25-year veteran of the business intelligence pioneer CEB, is joining Winsight in the newly created position of president, where he will oversee the Media & Events, Technomic and Exhibitions divisions. Alanna Young, formerly Winsight's chief operating officer, has been named president of Technomic, Winsight's research, insights and strategic consultancy in the food and beverage business.
“During a challenging time for most business intelligence, event and media companies, Winsight has posted phenomenal growth by responding to the dramatic changes in the information needs of its audiences,” said Mike Wood, CEO of Winsight. “The key is having leaders who can readily read the marketplace and respond with daring innovation and fresh thinking. Kurt and Alanna have proven they're the creative strategists who will lead our businesses forward during a time of unprecedented change in the industries we serve.”
Reisenberg joins Winsight from Gartner, which acquired CEB (formerly Corporate Executive Board) two years ago.
“Kurt is a proven business builder and inspirational leader who will focus on fostering integration among our divisions,” Wood said.
Reisenberg will join Winsight on Sept. 3, reporting to Wood.
Young joined Winsight four years ago to develop a data business for the company. She came from Metrostudy, Hanley Wood's real estate information firm, where she led research and membership services for 12 years. After Winsight's successful acquisition of Technomic, she shifted to the corporate role of chief operating officer, working closely with that business as well as Winsight's media and event properties.
“She has terrific leadership and communication skills, is well-versed in product and technology and has a true passion for the Technomic business,” Wood said. “She is the perfect person to lead that business forward as we explore new growth avenues.”
Chicago-based Winsight LLC is a business-to-business information company serving the restaurant and noncommercial foodservice, convenience and petroleum retailing and grocery industries. It provides research and analytics, branding solutions, face-to-face opportunities, lead generation initiatives and content marketing services through products including subscription data products, reports, research tools, research programs, fully custom studies, conferences, custom marketing services, meetings, and print and digital trade media. Winsight is a portfolio company of Pamlico Capital.
Members help make our journalism possible. Become a CSP member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.


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18 June 2021, New Delhi: Quality seeds for farmers is the first step towards growing quality produce and better yield. Research and development ensure that the challenges faced by farmers are resolved and they get better varieties to fight pests and diseases. However, unscrupulous activities by anti-social elements damage the trust of farmers and the brands which have been built with years of investment and R&D. Federation of Seed Industry of India (FSII) and National Seed Association of India (NSAI) want to highlight the sudden surge in cultivation of illegal HTBT Cotton this year.
It is being grown in major cotton growing states since several years at a lower intensity, but the sale has suddenly shot up this year posing a serious threat to the environment, farmers, legitimate seed companies and government revenue.During 2017, it was highlighted in Lok Sabha that farmers were cultivating unapproved herbicide tolerance (HT) transgenic cotton hybrids illegally in many states.
Thereafter, the Field Inspection and Scientific Evaluation Committee (FISEC) was set up under the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) by the Prime Minister Office and this committee confirmed that HT genetically modified cotton is illegally grown across the country. The FISEC panel, after testing several thousand samples, concluded that about 15 percent prevalence of unapproved HT cotton are in major states such as Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Gujarat. Dr M Ramasami, Chairman, Rasi Seeds and Chairman, FSII said, “The area under cultivation of illegal HT cotton has been increasing over the years. However, this year there is a big jump in such illegal cultivation especially in the major cotton states from estimated 35 lakh packets last year to about 70 lakh packets this year.
Also Read: Tractor sales in India likely to increase in June
The packs show the presence of many technologies which could pose a very serious situation in the field. If it is not controlled immediately by the governments, it will spell disaster for the industry and farmers.”
Mr Prabhakar Rao, President, NSAI said, “It will not only decimate small cotton seed companies but also threatens the entire legal cotton seed market in India. To make matters worse, the illegal seeds are sold using the brand name of prominent companies. With this, farmers are at risk with such illegal cotton seed sale as there is no accountability of the quality of seed. It pollutes the environment, the industry is losing legitimate seed sale and the government also loses revenue in terms of tax collection.
Regulators are only limiting their checking to licensed dealers and seed companies while this illegal activity of HT seed sales is carried mostly by unorganized and fly by night operators. Focus must be shifted to catching them and taking exemplary and strong punitive action. ”The spread of illegal seeds can also contaminate legitimate seed production thereby putting seed production farmers to heavy losses.
Looking at the seriousness of the situation, FSII and NSAI have written to the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India and GEAC to provide suitable instruction to the authorities for taking necessary action to stop the spread of such illegal activities and take immediate strict action against the offenders.


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New Payments Platform Australia (NPPA), a joint venture between the Reserve Bank of Australia and 13 domestic banks including ANZ, Westpac, and NAB has filed a lawsuit in an Australian court against Ripple Labs Inc. for trademark infringement.
The plaintiffs allege that Ripple Labs copied its registered PayID brand and use it to offer related services without permission or license.
The plaintiffs reportedly said that NPPA’s service has been in existence for more than two years, helping to facilitate instant payments across 68 million Australian bank accounts through its PayID brand.
The plaintiffs reportedly said that the defendant launched its cross-border payment service in June 2020 in partnership with 40 businesses and named it PayID.
The plaintiffs reportedly said that the defendant’s service is clearly identical to the NPPA PayID registered trademark and also similar in services offered.
The plaintiffs allege Ripple’s PayID may also be used to facilitate illegal activities such as money laundering, terrorism financing, and human rights abuse.
The plaintiffs allege that the defendant has caused lots of damages, confusion, and infringed the local Trademarks Act and constitutes misleading and deceptive behavior under Australian Consumer Law and the Australian Securities and Investment Commissions Act.
NPPA is seeking both damages and a permanent injunction preventing Ripple from using the PayID brand in Australia.
The case is ongoing.


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SSAB has increased plate prices by $80 per ton ($4/cwt) for U.S. customers and C$100 per ton for customers in Canada.
The price hike is effective immediately and applies to all new non-contract orders of as-rolled mill plate, cut-to-length plate more than 72 inches wide, hot rolled coils more than 72 inches wide, normalized plate and quenched-and-tempered product, the steelmaker said in letters to customers on Monday, March 1.
SSAB said in addition it would apply published extras, regional freight premiums and a standard “scrap collar” for quotations that require firm pricing over an extended period.
“SSAB Americas reserves the right to re-quote any open offers not confirmed by an SSAB order acknowledgement,” the company said.
SSAB Americas is a subsidiary of Swedish steelmaker SSAB. It operates plate mills in Montpelier, Iowa, and Mobile, Ala.
SSAB’s price increase follows $70-per-ton price hikes announced by Nucor and Evraz last week. SSAB had been expected by market participants to follow its competitors higher this week. It was not immediately clear why SSAB might have taken the previously announced increases and raised the ante by $10 per ton.
Steel Market Update’s average plate price stands at $1,070 per ton, up 5.4% from $1,015 per ton in early February and up 22.3% from $875 per ton at the beginning of the year.
By Michael Cowden, email@example.com
Michael CowdenRead more from Michael Cowden
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Sheet prices slipped again this week on news of the United Auto Workers (UAW) strike and continued caution among some consumers.
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The spread between hot-rolled coil (HRC) and galvanized sheet base prices widened throughout the summer as hot rolled prices declined faster than those of galvanized.
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Sheet prices fell across the board ahead of what many market participants predict will be a strike by the United Auto Workers (UAW) later this week.
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Nucor Corp. will lower plate prices by $40 per ton ($2 per cwt) with the opening of its October order book.
SMU Price Ranges: Sheet Prices Move Lower, No Bottom Yet
Sheet prices have fallen this week, after a small pause last week when prices saw mixed results. Tags have now been largely trending lower since July.


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A man who licked the within of an ice cream cream carton in a Texas Walmart has actually been thrown in jail.
You are watching: Girl who licked ice cream and put it back charged
D'Adrien Anderson, 24, tape-recorded himself licking a tub of ice cream cream within a Walmart and also then placing it ago into the store freezer ~ the upsetting moment.
D'Adrien Anderson recorded himself licking a tub of ice cream cream inside a Walmart in TexasCredit: Instagram
Anderson has been sentenced come 30 days in jail with second 180 days probation over two years because that the respectable 2019 incident, Port writer News reported.
He is now forced to complete 100 hours of ar service.
The video, i m sorry was common to Facebook and has since been taken down, received an ext than 160,000 views.
It mirrors Anderson, of harbor Arthur, Texas, grabbing a container of Blue Bell ice cream, removing the lids, continually licking the ice cream, and also putting his fingers into the ice cream cream.
According to Port writer News, Jefferson County ar Attorney’s Office released a statement, i beg your pardon read: “Anderson’s actions resulted in public concerns about the safety and also quality of customer products readily available for publicly consumption, influenced Blue Bell customer confidence and also caused the agency financial loss.
“This form of activity will no be tolerated.
"The Jefferson County ar Attorney’s Office and the port Arthur Police room want the general public to recognize that such cases will it is in taken seriously and appropriate criminal charges will certainly be filed.”
Anderson should pay a well of $1,000 and also a restitution of $1,565 to Blue Bell Creameries.
The video, i m sorry was common to Facebook and also has since been bring away down, received an ext than 160,000 viewsCredit: Instagram
Anderson is seen through his fingers in his mouth after ~ licking the ice cream tubCredit: Instagram
Walmart said: "If food is tampered with, or a customer wants to leave the impression that they left behind adulterated product, we will certainly move conveniently with law enforcement to identify, apprehend and also prosecute those who think this is a hoax – the is not," metro UK reported.
Anderson pleaded guilty in court top top January 15.
Despite Anderson showing cops a receipt of his ice-cream, i beg your pardon he asserted to purchased ~ the video was taken, Walmart revitalized its ice cream inventory.
His sentencing come after a spate the ice-cream licking incidents.
Last summer, a Texas woman also licked Blue Bell ice cream right from the bath tub before putting it earlier in the supermarket freezer.
The woman, that was later established by police, to be featured in a viral video that obtained more than 11million see on Twitter.
She to be warned she would face a 20-year prison sentence and thousands of dollars in fines.
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Another prankster, in a ailing copycat video, was filmed just days after ~ the Texas woman's video went viral.
Lenise young name III, 36, to be arrested ~ slurping Blue Bell ice cream cream and also putting his finger within the bathtub at a shop in Belle Rose, Louisiana.
See more: First Person To Win Golden Globe While Hosting, Golden Globes Amy Poehler: Host And Winner
Even despite Martin III proved a receipt that his ice cream cream purchase, he to be still charged with unlawful posting that criminal task for notoriety and publicity, and also tampering v property.


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A proposal from a council to introduce charges to a Derbyshire market town's car park has sparked a huge debate amongst business people and patrons.
Some shop owners in Belper are concerned that if customers had to pay to park at the Coppice car park, this would result in diminished footfall. They add that now is not the right time to bring in the measure because the cost of living is already high enough.
Others however suggest that parking in the market place in other car parks is relatively cheap compared to similar settings in nearby towns such as Matlock, adding the cost would bring the town in line with everywhere else.
Mrs Lawrence, 37, a catering assistant at Dot-Teas Emporium on Bridge Street, who did not want to give her first name, cited a supposed obscure law that states the council cannot legally introduce parking charges because the land was given to the people of Belper some years ago after construction work.
The contract, she claimed, means the car park must remain free. Mrs Lawrence said: "It belongs to people of Belper, that law still stands. They cannot force us to pay for parking. It would be shouted down in court.
"It's the case of any council in any town anywhere. They’re not in tune with the local laws and obviously have not done their homework. Why can’t we have one free? We pay for all the others.
"Forget the politics and work for the town."
Mark Greening, 57, owner of Sundial Style on King Street for 15 years, is concerned about the effect extra charges would have on the amount of customers in the market place and is worried about its effect on the cost of living. He said: "Increased parking charges would decrease footfall. There used to also be free parking on Derwent Street. It's absolutely not the right time considering the cost of living.
"But the Coppice has been overutilised since Derwent Street as well. When I get in at 8.30-9am in the morning it's always three quarters full."
Another shop employee, who did not want to be named, said: "A lot of residents depend on the car park on the Coppice. But charges here aren’t too bad compared to Matlock and the Peak District - although disabled people have to park there, and it's a shame if they can't anymore."
But she added that she was not aware of the law that supposedly kept the car park in the hands of local people, but has faith that Belper will continue to do well whatever happens. She said: "I didn’t know about the law. We've been really lucky in the last couple of years, unlike a lot of the high street. But Belper's got a lot to offer, a mix of chains, and independents. There's also the flea market on Friday and the farmers market."
Rachel Burgoyne, 46, who has co-owned Oh So Sweet in the market place for seven years has mixed feelings about the proposal, saying that charges would not really affect her business, but says others might feel an effect as it is not the right time to charge people extra money. Fuel, she adds, is already expensive enough.
Rachel said: "People that we get visiting us are locals, and are taking the bus or walking. Weekend tourists mostly use the car park, but I myself would expect to pay.
"I don’t know how other towns in Derbyshire are, but in Yorkshire everywhere’s free, and their market towns are very busy. Belgium too, you can park everywhere for free.
I'm not sure charges would make a difference, I don’t think there’s much room for visitors anyway. But I do get it, the council need to recoup some money. It would bring Belper to the same tariff as nearby towns."
If charges are introduced, Rachel suggests that discounts in local shops could be given to cut costs and boost local businesses. She said: "What about discounts in shops after paying? It gets me into the Co-op more.
"There's also been reduced bus services recently to every other hour. I’m here all day, but other people would have to drive."
Rachel's long-time friend and regular customer, Claire Buckley, 49, a former audit manager, is concerned that some people do not choose to come into town, and instead visit for doctors or opticians appointments. They would therefore be forced to pay more for driving their cars.
She said: "I don’t think they [existing charges] are that bad to be fair but I've just filled up my car with £120 worth of diesel - I nearly dropped to the floor.
"It won’t go down well with local people, but it's a difficult one."
A spokesperson for Belper Town Council said: "The first formal report presenting options for the town council car parks in Belper is being considered by Full Council, but no final decisions will be made in the short-term.
"There are a wide range of legal and environmental issues which will be considered in full before any conclusions can be made. The views of residents, businesses and visitors to the Town will also be taken into account."
Town councillor Joel Bryan (Belper Central) said he was not aware of the law barring the council from introducing charges to the Coppice car park, but this idea may well have originated from a clause in a contract that has since expired.
He added: "In October 2020, Amber Valley Borough Council issued invoices to Belper Town Council for Business Rates for Coppice and St John’s Car Parks backdated to 2017. The total due is £79,332.
"Business Rates have not been charged on these car parks prior to this, but have now been applied because of changes made by Central Government in 2013 designed to force Borough Councils to maximise their local income generation, enabling a reduction in grant funding from central government.
"Belper Town Council proposed a payment plan of an immediate payment of £19,332 followed by £2,000 payments every month for 30 months, which was eventually accepted by AVBC in Feb 2021.
"The council's car parking working group are bringing their report at full council on the 14th of June.
"Please note that no decision has yet been made, and any decision made will be done so by full council on the 14th of June at the struts. I would encourage everyone please to come along to the meeting on the 14th and make your feelings heard."


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PRIME distributor brings cannabis-infused spirit to market
Nowadays has signed a deal with a major alcohol distributor to become the first cannabis spirit available across America.
Despite launching just months ago, Nowadays has signed a distribution partnership with Atlantic Beverage Distributors in Massachusetts to become the first cannabis-infused spirit available across the United States.
The newly inked deal with Atlantic, which launched PRIME in the state of Massachusetts, will add retail distribution to Nowadays’ existing DTC business, which is currently worth more than US$1 million.
According to the branding team, Nowadays is designed to deliver “a gentle lift within 15 minutes of consumption”.
Consumers can choose from two strengths – a 33 mg ‘THC Micro Dose’ (US$39.99), which delivers “a light buzz and controllable experience that is ideal for new cannabis consumers” , or a 100 mg ‘THC Low Dose’ (US$59.99), offering “a stronger buzz for the experienced cannabis consumer”.
The drink can be taken as a shot, served poured over ice, or mixed into a cocktail.
Launched in April 2023 to bridge the gap between alcoholic and alcohol-free products, the concept behind Nowadays is to offer a buzz “without the negative side effects” for the “happiest of happy hours”.
More than 26,000 bottles of the cannabis spirit have been sold so far.
“We are honoured to be the first-ever cannabis spirit represented by Atlantic Beverage Distributors alongside its expansive portfolio of fast growth brands,” said Justin Tidwell, co-founder and CEO of Nowadays.
Mino Soghomonian, general manager of Atlantic Beverage Distribution, said the company was excited to be “leading the charge in the cannabis beverage category” after launching successful brands in Massachusetts like Cutwater Spirits, Happy Dad, and PRIME.
Interestingly, many major drinks firms are selling off their CBD interests.
In December 2022, Molson Coors announced that it was exiting its CBD business with Marijuana grower HEX due to lawmakers dragging their heels on reforming cannabis laws in the US.
“The key for us is to go big behind what’s working and smartly pivot out of what isn’t working from a scale standpoint, like CBD beverages,” said Pete Marino, president of emerging growth for Molson Coors.
Meanwhile, Constellation, which has sunk more than US$4 billion into its cannabis drink venture, continues to sit on a majority stake in Canadian cannabis producer Canopy Growth.
Outside of the US, Hong Kong has banned CBD drinks completely, with penalties ranging from “up to life in prison” to fines totalling HK$5 million (US$638,000) for importing, exporting or producing CBD to HK$1 million (US$128,000) for possession of the substance.


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By Bruce Apar
At the end of Part 1 of this two-part topic (see October 19 PennySaver), we learned from an article in USA Today that Detroit retailer Kit and Ace does not accept cash payment from its customers.
“I think we are sort of on the edge of seeing more and more businesses that don’t take cash.” That’s what economist Jay Zagorsky of Ohio State University told USA Today a couple of months ago for a story whose headline asked if we’re headed for a cashless society.
Other monetary experts interviewed by the publication have similar views on the steady, if slow, disappearing act that cash is making in our culture. Federal Reserve Bank economist Paul Traub explains in the same article that, unless a state legislates otherwise, there is no federal law or regulation that requires a business to accept cash payment for goods or services.
Another economist whom USA Today spoke with, Harvard’s Kenneth Rogoff, isn’t calling for a cashless society. He’s calling for a “less-cash” society. One suggestion he posits is reducing the number of $100 bills in circulation. At the other end of the spectrum, there have been intermittent calls for reducing, or eliminating, the pennies in circulation. Owing to their sparse use, who would argue that making fewer cents makes sense.
In his book, The Curse of Cash, Mr. Rogoff explains that big bills like a C-note facilitate crimes like tax evasion and other illegal activities. Think of those movies where a briefcase might contain hundreds or millions of dollars in illicit gains. Rest assured those aren’t $5, $10 or $20 bills. The Harvard professor makes the point that a million bucks in $100 bills weighs a manageable 22 pounds and in fact can be packed inside a standard-size briefcase.
USA Today’s piece also referred to a survey on “Consumer Payment Choice” conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston in 2013.
Among its findings was less use of paper checks, and almost one-in-three payments made with a debit card. I don’t doubt it. More than one in four payments are with cash, and a similar proportion are made with credit cards. That adds up to 80% of transactions made with either legal tender or plastic. The remaining 20% are handled by checks, money order, prepaid cards, or electronic transfer of funds. In the average month, consumers make 40 transactions.
My own experience is that it’s a major convenience when I order takeout meals online so I don’t have to stand on line. Using a smartphone app, I order and pre-pay for a cup of coffee or a salad and then swoop into the store to pick up my order without waiting. You should check it out.
What’s next in future forms of payment? With voice recognition all the rage, it won’t be long before we’ll just only have to speak the amount of the transaction to active payment. After that—mind control payment. Except it’ll cost a lot more than a penny for your thoughts.
Bruce Apar is Chief Content Officer of Google Partner Agency, Pinpoint Marketing & Design, as well as an actor and a regular contributor to several periodicals. Follow him as Bruce The Blog on social media. Reach him at firstname.lastname@example.org or (914) 275-6887.


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For some unexplainable reason, there has been a slew of announcements focusing on the dental industry in recent weeks.
BMF announced a very unusual new application for their micro 3D printer: dental veneers.
Boston Micro Fabrication is on the move.
Consolidation, innovation and the drive toward production-ready additive manufacturing could bring another order-of-magnitude change in the industry over the next decade.
Boston Micro Fabrication (BMF) announced a new 3D printer, the microArch S350.
Several new AM materials were announced in the past week.
BMF announced a new microArch 3D printer, the S230.
BMF has been collaborating with Carnegie-Mellon University on a very promising approach to COVID-19 vaccines.
BMF released details today about an industrial 3D printer targeting the micro parts market.
Researchers have used a micro-3D printing technology to produce an effective long-term drug delivery needle system.
A new player has emerged on the micro-3D printing stage: Boston Micro Fabrication.


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'How Sharechat & Moj are making digital advertising more fun & engaging'
Ratan Singh Rathore & Palkush Rai Chawla, of Sharechat & Moj, highlighted four trends that can help any brand up its digital game, at e4m Upfront: : Festival Edition
As Sharechat and Moj -- the leading social media and short video platforms from the house of Mohalla Tech -- expand their advertising and monetisation avenues, they are also striking a counterbalance between user experience and business, they mentioned it during the recently wrapped e4m Upfront- Festival Edition.
Sharechat & Moj Product Head - Ads & Monetisation Palkush Rai Chawla, while answering a question by the audience around keeping the platforms clutter-free for better user experience, mentioned, “Sharechat and Moj are AI-based platforms, which means all the ads that any user sees are contextually relevant and useful for them. So, that keeps the clutter away. Also, we are striking a good counterbalance between content and ad space, so any user won’t see more than two ads, say per 15 posts.”
Chawla along with Ratan Singh Rathore -- Senior Director of Agency Relationship at Sharechat & Moj, also talked in detail about their monetisation efforts, which started just 13 months ago, at the virtual conference. The duo highlighted four trends that can help any brand up its digital game, including language, data, video and AI.
Rathore quipped, “In today’s time, any marketer is trying to achieve five things with any campaign; maximum reach, best rates, clutter-free environment, brand-safe spaces, and different styles and manner of communication. Sharechat and Moj offer all of these with its suite of products that work on the motto of creating meaningful social experiences with consumers at the centre.”
He added that the platforms have been built on strong AI capabilities that rely on first-party audience data that ensures the users are being served only the content they like, thus increasing the time spent.
While sharing some data, he highlighted, “From Q1 of 2020-21 to Q2 of 2021-22, the MAUs have shown significant growth on Sharechat, from 60 million to 180 million. Also, the average time spent has gone up from 18 minutes to 31 minutes. Moj, since its launch in 2020, has reached 160 million in MAUs and the average time spent on the app stands at 34 minutes. It shows how much the users are loving the platforms and the strong creator-backed content.”
The duo also shared some of the properties that they offer the advertisers for meaningful and interesting content, including branded AR lenses, hashtag challenges, and promoting user engagement via these tools.
The platform is also experimenting with a unique ad model called splash entries. Speaking about the same, Chawla shared, “It is the first thing that a user sees when they tap on the Sharechat or Moj app icon on their phone; a vertical ad, which is up to 4 seconds long and unskippable.
"It seamlessly merges into the user feed and appears as the first post. This impactful entry ensures more engagement, 100% share of voice, and twice the impressions. Many advertisers, especially in the FMCG space are utilising this property, mainly for new product launches.”
He added that Sharechat is also launching Sharechat TV, which will be the right platform for long-form content and ads, and that will give the advertisers more options to reach their TGs. The duo also spoke about the launch of ShareChat ADs Platform. Currently, in its Beta phase, it allows brands and agencies to set up, target, and monitor their campaigns themselves.
Chawla also talks about the ShareChat business Partner offer; a newly signed-up partner can make the most from the platform by getting 100% additional credits to the ad amount added to their ShareChat Ads wallet.
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STE. GENEVIEVE, MO -- Since Lucent Window and Door, LLC opened its new factory near St. Louis last December, the company has been turning out more than 400 complete window and door sets daily. Within a month the company was looking to expand operations by securing a Small Business Administration Loan to expand inventory.
In August 2013 Lucent, which manufactures high-end wood and wood-aluminum-clad windows and patio doors, acquired the former 200,000 square foot plant BiltBest Windows plant near St. Louis to for produce all-wood and metal-clad wood windows aimed at the high end residential remodeling market. The facility includes 14.6 acres of property and buildings totaling 221,000 square feet. The plant had been idle since April 2011, when BiltBest Windows’ last production line ceased operation.
During the grand opening ceremony in December company officials showed off different manufacturing capabilities, including lines for double-mount windows and casements, which can produce between 200 and 250 units per day.
CEO Tom Bruggeman pleaded with state lawmakers to assist in securing the SBA loan
In January state legislators, including House Speaker Timothy Jones toured the plant. Jones told company officials he would do what he could to “remove any barriers [to the company] generating new jobs,” according to the St. Genevieve Herald.
In a video of a facilities tour, company officials said Lucent wants to provide the highest quality of windows and doors to customers.
“We’ve been pleased how the site has developed,” a company official said during the video.
But the company has grand plans for the site. The Herald reported Lucent will look to add 60,000 square feet by 2020. Company research shows the existing building only has the capacity to produce enough product to meet $95 million in sales, the paper reported.
Lucent leaders are projecting first-year sales of $16 million, the St. Genevieve Daily Journal reported. The company employs 26 full-time workers and has expectations to employ more than 100 by the end of 2014. If plans for expansion go as company officials hope, annual sales are expected to be in excess of $50 million by 2018 with 240 expected employees, the St. Genevieve Herald reported.
Have something to say? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.


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Facebook Deals, the check-in service that allows you to claim special offers in places that you've "checked-in" to, is making its way across the Atlantic today as the social network officially announced the launch of...
Is Windows Phone about to go big?
Digital Storm Vanquish II gaming PC
Which Android handsets would you like to see as Windows Phones?
Facebook is due to hold a press event at its headquarters in Palo Alto, California, later today. Many blogs and tech sites have been trying to guess what Facebook may announce. However, it now appears, quite...


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Taylor Swift’s presence at Sunday’s Kansas City Chiefs game not only made headlines, but it also had a significant impact on the sales of Travis Kelce’s jerseys. The “Swifties,” as Taylor Swift’s fans are known, wasted no time in rushing to get their hands on the Kansas City Chiefs superstar’s merch, causing a massive spike in sales.
Taylor Swift’s attendance at the Chiefs game resulted in a nearly 400% increase in Travis Kelce’s jersey sales, making him one of the top 5 selling NFL players on Sunday.
According to Fanatics, the NFL’s official e-commerce partner, Travis Kelce’s No. 87 jerseys were among the most popular items on the NFL Shop that day. In fact, Kelce saw a staggering 400% surge in sales across the Fanatics network of sites, including NFLShop.com.
While it is impossible to determine exactly who made all the purchases, it is evident that Taylor Swift’s support of her rumored new love interest played a significant role in the rise of jersey sales. Swift’s visit to Arrowhead Stadium to watch the Chiefs’ victory over the Bears, with a final score of 41-10, seemingly ignited the fandom’s enthusiasm for this potential connection.
It is no secret that Taylor Swift has an incredibly passionate fanbase. Given their dedication, it would not come as a surprise if the Swifties emptied their wallets to secure jerseys of their newfound favorite athlete, Travis Kelce.
Despite being a long-time Philadelphia Eagles fan, Swift seemed right at home with Chiefs Kingdom as she watched the game from a suite alongside Kelce’s mother, Donna. The two were even seen leaving the stadium together, cruising away in Kelce’s old-school convertible.
As the Traylor (combination of Taylor and Travis) bond continues to develop, Swift’s fans are undoubtedly hoping for something more significant. Otherwise, there might be an abundance of No. 87 jerseys collecting dust amongst the Swifties.


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Dec 13, 2011
Honda of Clear Lake sponsored Bennett Johnson, New Car Sales Manager, in the New York City ING Marathon in Nov. 2011. Johnson was running for “Autism Speaks” to help fund research for children with autism spectrum disorder.
Oct 31, 2011
As one of the Top 100 Internet retailers in the nation, Honda of Clear Lake continues to look for opportunities to stay ahead of the fast-moving technology curve. Visit your App store to download the free App today or visit www.HondaOfClearLake.com.
Apr 08, 2011
Honda of Clear Lake receives recognition as one of the Top 100 Internet Dealers in the nation for 2011 by Ward’s Automotive.
Mar 24, 2011
Honda of Clear Lake announces their participation in “The Really Big Thing,” Honda's biggest sales event so far in 2011.
Mar 11, 2011
Honda of Clear Lake proudly announces their all-new Free Loaner Program, a new addition to their service and maintenance department.


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Brightly colored laundry pods may look great but they can pose serious risk for young children. According to a study, colorful detergent pods are irresistible to young children but they are very toxic. Young children may mistake it for candy and can ingest it with disastrous consequences.
The study which was published in the journal Pediatrics evaluated the data from the National Poison Data System in the U.S. and finds laundry pods which are colorful single use packages of detergent poses an eminent poisoning risk for children. The risk is very serious and this has prompted the study authors to recommend those families who have kids less than 4 years to avoid buying these laundry pods altogether and use the conventional liquid or powder detergents.
The study found that 17,230 children under the age of six had some kind of harmful exposure to laundry detergent pods in 2012-2013.
Dr. Marcel Casavant, study author said, ‘These have bright colors, they have pretty patterns. When you feel them, they’re soft and squishy. If I were a child, it would look like the perfect item to put into my mouth. That’s about one an hour, many with vomiting, troubled breathing, and trouble staying awake. We found some skin injuries, some eye injuries, some burns to these children. A number of these children were having so much trouble breathing, they had to have a tube put into their windpipe and then be connected to a ventilator.”
Two thirds of the kids were one to two years old. 79.9% of the cases involved ingestion by the unsuspecting kids. These laundry pods are colorful and look very gaudy and attractive. They are also very soft and squishy to touch almost resembling candies prompting kids to put them in their mouth.
A change in the packing of the laundry pods by the manufacturing company led to a 25% fall in cases of exposure.